Former Greeley man hunkers down in Boston during manhunt

Heavily armed police officers do house to house searches in the neighborhoods of Watertown, Mass. Friday, April 19, 2013, as a massive search continued for one of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing. A second suspect died in the early morning hours after an encounter with law enforcement. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

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In a town that normally teems with Boston’s busy overflow, the only sound Dale Trevino could hear Friday morning was the thump of helicopters passing over his home.

Trevino grew up in Greeley in a family of seven, including his twin brother, Dan, who works as an attorney here and graduated with his brother from Greeley Central in 1982 .

Dale works as director of diversity in the School of Public Health at Harvard, a job he accepted in the summer of 2008. But Friday morning he was in lockdown, as was the rest of Boston.

His Newton neighborhood, he said Friday morning, was a mile-and-a-half from the 20-block radius where police were searching for the second suspect of the Boston Marathon bombings. That 20-block radius was locked down first before the rest of Boston got the order. Those same helicopters woke him from a fitful night of sleeping.

“It’s been a really interesting week,” Trevino said in an understated way, as if all of it hadn’t hit him yet. He watched local coverage on TV and thought about the landmarks in his city now marked as points in the battle and search. He drives by some of those spots every day.

In fact, police gave the all-clear signal for residents to move about the city late in the afternoon and Trevino and his wife took their son to soccer practice.

But on their way home Friday night, Trevino ran into a police barricade near where the second bombing suspect was thought to be holed up. Again, he heard the thump of helicopters overhead.

Trevino said about 9,000 law enforcement officers had been combing the streets for the second suspect all day and he described the experience as “surreal.”

Yet, through it all, Trevino said he has tried to take it in stride.

“It’s better than being upset,” he said.

And Trevino is thankful.

His son, Ryan, 17, a high school junior, and his wife, Michelle, were supposed to go a burger place Monday just blocks from the second explosion, but they went to a health club in the opposite direction.

Still, Trevino remains concerned.

His job is to recruit students of all colors, nationalities and income levels to Harvard. He loves his community because it’s diverse and international. Anyone from anywhere could blend in.

“My hope is that this doesn’t turn into profiling in anyway, shape or form,” Trevino said. “Bostonians are doing a good job of that right now, but we’re talking with our campus about that very thing.”